Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Continues to Shake Up British Politics

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaks at the party's annual conference at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, England, on Sept. 20, 2024. Joe Giddens/PA Wire

News Analysis

For the first time, a poll has put the right-wing Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, ahead of the two establishment parties that have dominated British politics for more than a century.

The shift mirrors a broader wave of populist movements across Europe that have replaced both left and right-wing establishment parties in government, or significantly altered electoral math and political calculations.

And while pollsters differ on the significance of the latest poll, they agree that the new party—with its avowed mission to destroy the Conservative Party—has upended the long-standing norms of British politics.

“This is a trend across the Western world. I think in Europe, it’s a trend that’s very connected to poor economic performance,” Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs and director of the think tank UK in a Changing Europe, told The Epoch Times.

Pollsters also suggest that the rise in popularity of Reform is also attributed to frustration over the Conservative government’s handling of immigration and energy policy.

Reform was founded in 2021 as the successor to the Brexit Party, itself formed as a spin-off of the UKIP party after Farage resigned in 2018. After a break from front-line politics, Farage joined Reform as its leader only last year, ahead of the general election in July.

At the Reform conference in Birmingham last September, Farage said that the “Conservative brand is bust” and that Labour is his main target.

The party has claimed that Reform now has more members than the Conservatives, though Tory Party leader Kemi Badenoch disputed the figures.

A poll by Find Out Now on Jan. 24 showed Reform leading with 26 percent, overtaking both the Conservatives (23 percent) and Labour (22 percent), marking a 4-point rise since November 2024—the first of any poll to do so.

The poll also said that Reform won more than one-fifth of 2024’s general election Conservative voters as well as almost half (46 percent) of people who didn’t vote in 2024 but say they would “definitely vote” this time.

“Notably they have not dropped in support over any of our voting intention polls since November,” it added.

Farage’s Reform has five MPs in Britain’s 650-seat parliament after winning more than 4 million votes in the past general election.

Academic, writer, and pollster Matthew Goodwin told The Epoch Times that polling represented a “major shift in British politics.”

Goodwin has spoken at Reform conferences’ before and has said that Britain needs a “political revolution.”

He also thinks that the party could win the next General Election in 2029 given several factors, due to firstly, “remarkable volatility in the country.”

He said that in British politics, more people are “switching their votes than ever before,” especially over the past decade.

“Second, cultural issues like immigration, broken borders really do matter to voters, and they’re colliding with the cost of living crisis, which is also helping Reform,” he said.

“From America to Europe, from Austria to Sweden to Italy to Donald Trump, you can see anti-establishment movements really breaking through in a major way. And we have a uni-party left and right that is remarkably unpopular in Britain.”

Goodwin said another factor is the professionalization of the Reform Party over the past six months.

“It sounds fanciful but I could actually see Reform, doing something similar to what the Labour Party did in the early 20th century to replacing a dominant political party and emerging as a serious challenger,” he added.

Splitting the Right Vote

Other pollsters disputed the claim that Reform has a clear lead over the main parties.

James Johnson, former chief pollster at 10 Downing Street under former Prime Minister Theresa May and now co-founder of J.L. Partners, told The Epoch Times by email that its polling, “amongst the most accurate in 2024, is showing Reform in a close third place.”

“Pollsters showing Reform in first are ones who over-estimated their support in 2024, in some cases by as much as 10 points,” he said.

Johnson said that third place, and within the margin of error of the Tories and Labour, is “clearly still a very strong position for Reform to be in.”

“Farage grabs attention, is speaking in the language of voters, and it is not implausible that he could leapfrog the Conservatives,” he said.

But he added that there are two caveats. He said that just as in 2024, if the vote on the right splits, then it is Labour who will benefit.

“Few constituencies look like the country as a whole, so a situation where all three parties are level-pegging usually means Labour holds onto seats due to a split opposition.

“Second—and unlike Labour in the early 20th century—Reform’s popularity hinges on Nigel Farage. I find it hard to see how Reform could maintain the same levels of support without him at the helm,” Johnson said.

Connected To Poor Economic Performance

Menon said that the main centre-left and centre-right parties are losing vote share.

“We’ve essentially gone 17 years without meaningful growth, meaningful average wage rises. It’s not surprising that people are getting fed up at the same time we’ve got crumbling public services,” he said.

Menon also said if the economy was working properly, people would be less concerned about immigration.

He said that he believed that the vast majority of people who are voting Reform are people who’ve left the Tories, whereas Labour are losing votes across the board.

“Labour aren’t just losing a few people to Reform, but they’re also losing to the Greens and to the Lib Dems,” he said, adding that he thinks that the success of Reform is more of a threat to the Tories than Labour.

Menon said that the left-wing Greens, who won four seats in the past general election, have also done well from the general sense of dissatisfaction with establishment parties.

He also noted that Farage has a solid national profile, is a great performer, and is a natural with the media.

Farage also has a GB News prime-time show. Reform MPs Richard Tice and Lee Anderson also have shows on the popular channel.

“That being said, there are structural reasons that you see across the Western world why people are disaffected with politics and, in a sense, looking for the ‘none of the above option’,” Menon added.